When a smart-mouthed, mixed-race teen wonders why the work that needs to be done pays nothing compared to the busywork glorified on holovision news, the search for answers takes him on the wildest journey of anyone’s lifetime. Their planet is choked with pollution. They can’t do anything about it . . . or can they? With the girl of his dreams, he inadvertently invents living computers. Just as the human race allows corporations to pollute Earth into total desolation, institute martial law and enslave humanity, the two teens set out to save civilization. Can they thwart polluters of Earth and other fertile planets? The heroes come into their own in different kinds of relationships in this diverse, multi-cultural romance. Along the way, they enlist the help of female droid Any Gynoid, who uncovers cutting-edge scientific mysteries. Their quest takes them through the Big Bang and back. Will Starliament tear them from the project and unleash ‘intelligent’ life’s habitual pollution, or will youth lead the way to a new way of coexisting with Nature?

Nature’s Confession couldn’t be more timely, amidst the largest climate change march in world history when world leaders converged for an emergency UN Climate Summit in New York City. With illustrations and topics for discussion at the back of the book, JL Morin entertains questions about busywork; economic incentives to pollute; sustainable energy; exploitation; cyborgs; the sanctity of Nature; and many kinds of relationships in this diverse, multicultural romance.

Meet the author:Novelist and rooftop farmer, JL Morin grew up in inner city Detroit and wrote her Japan novel, Sazzae as her thesis at Harvard. It was a Gold medalist in the eLit Book Award, and a Living Now Book Award winner. She took to the road, traveling around the world, worked as a TV newscaster, and wrote three more novels. Adjunct faculty at Boston University, J. L. Morin, was nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2011. She is the author of Travelling Light, and ‘Occupy’s 1st bestselling novel’ Trading Dreams, a humorous story that unmasks hypocrisy in the banking industry and tosses corruption onto the horns of the Wall Street bull. She writes for the Huffington Post, and Library Journal, Sustainable Cites Collective, and has written for The Harvard Advocate, Harvard Yisei, Detroit News, Agence France-Presse, Cyprus Weekly, European Daily, Livonia Observer Eccentric Newspapers, the Harvard Crimson and others.

I have to admit, this is one of the more bizarre books I’ve ever read. I did learn a new word however, “spaghettification”.

“Boy’s” (he won’t receive a name until he’s 15) family lives in a very dismal future where, the ocean is encroaching on landmasses, animals are extinct and food is pretty much all “non-food”. Corrupt governments and corporations have all but destroyed Nature to line their pockets. Censorship monitors public speech, so that when someone says an “illegal” word, they get an electric shock to the head. His sister is a clone of his mother and all learning institutions teach only “cooked information” and no one is allowed freedom of thought, i.e. eHarvard.

The storyline combines spirituality, animism, evolution and commercialism into one big weird ball. The plot would start and end abruptly, wander off into different tangents and finally pick up another thread. I laud the author’s intention to inform young people of the harm that governements and big business are causing to the government. However, the way this information was interspersed throughout the book made me think of billboards popping in and out of the rainforest – we’re minding our business reading the story and then “ooo! another billboard pops up” and then we continue with the story.

.

The second half of the book is a bit more coherent and I was able to read it at a faster pace. This book would appeal to a YA audience.